Interview: MediaNews’ Singleton On What’s Ailing Newspapers: It’s The Economy, Not The Internet

It’s been a rough few years for the newspaper business. With the migration of readers and advertisers from print to online, and then the past year’s economic downturn and market meltdown this month, it’s hard to figure out where the fixes are going to come from. William Dean Singleton, CEO of Denver-based publisher MediaNews Group and chairman of the AP board, believes he can address the challenge presented by online media to newspapers by tying print and interactive ad sales more closely together and by relying on cooperative services from Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), the AP and real estate ad net Zillow. But the economy, that’s a whole other problem. I spoke with Singleton following Yahoo’s heralding of its APT display ad sales delivery and targeting system last week. During the Yahoo press conference, Singleton said he expects up to 22 percent of the privately-held company’s revenue this year will come from online newspapers, with that number reaching 50 percent in five years. Rather than looking too far ahead though, our conversation focused on the here and now.

More from Singleton on convergent ad sales and the AP after the jump.

— It’s the economy: Singleton: “The biggest thing we need right now is an improved economy, because at least 60 percent of the revenue problem we